Despite the existence of widespread public discourse about equality and human rights, social, racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, political and economic divisions continue to mark societies across the globe. In many countries, these divisions have even widened under the pressure of competing nationalist and populist discourses which highlight difference rather than common humanity. Today, new technologies of surveillance are used on both a national and supra-national level to classify, segregate and control all those who are thought to threaten the mythical cohesion and security of nation-states. Whilst it was thought that the end of the Cold War and the spread of globalisation would lead to the erosion of boundaries of all kinds, on the contrary old boundaries are being rebuilt and new ones created. These boundaries have spread far beyond the traditional borders of nation state as surveillance and security have come to dominate the agendas of international organisations.

Argument

Despite the existence of widespread public discourse about equality and human rights, social, racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, political and economic divisions continue to mark societies across the globe. In many countries, these divisions have even widened under the pressure of competing nationalist and populist discourses which highlight difference rather than common humanity. Today, new technologies of surveillance are used on both a national and supra-national level to classify, segregate and control all those who are thought to threaten the mythical cohesion and security of nation-states. Whilst it was thought that the end of the Cold War and the spread of globalisation would lead to the erosion of boundaries of all kinds, on the contrary old boundaries are being rebuilt and new ones created. These boundaries have spread far beyond the traditional borders of nation state as surveillance and security have come to dominate the agendas of international organisations.

This conference will be particularly interested in exploring the rise of security obsessions on a micro and macro level, examining what the future holds in terms of surveillance practices. It will look at the consequences of these trends in terms of exacerbating social divisions. It will seek to examine forms of resistance and to propose practical ways out of the current security impasse. As has traditionally been the case with European Group conferences, the conference will connect with local problems and activist groups. Papers connecting the conference theme with local issues in Eastern Europe will be particularly welcome. 

Academics, activists and all those targetted by mechanisms of state control and segregation (people in prison, migrants, people who have come into conflict with the police etc.) are encouraged to participate.

We welcome papers on the themes below which reflect the general values and principles of the European Group.

Processes of Violence and Victimisation

Contact: Alejandro Forero Email: aleforero@ub.edu  and Rita Faria Email: rfaria@direito.up.pt

• Global crime
• State-corporate crime
• The social and environmental harms of neoliberal capitalism
• Collective harms
• Gendered harm

Surveillance futures

Contact: Alberto Testa Email: alberto.testa@outlook.com  

Assisting: Maryja Supa/ Steve Wright

•  Futures of social control
•  Extra-national surveillance
•  Fortress Europe
•  Dataveillance and data flow
•  Social sorting

The rise of the security state

Contact: Paddy Rawlinson Email: paddy.rawlinson@monash.edu  

Assisting: Georgios Papanicolaou, Francesca Vianello, John Moore, Scott Poynting, Luca Follis, Antonio Munoz

•  Imperialism/post-colonialism
•  The harms of policing
•  State-corporate control
•  Incarceration and control
•  Governance and security

Social divisions and classification

Contact: Monish Bhatia Email: m.bhatia@abertay.ac.uk  

Assisting: Tunde ZackWilliams/ Andrea Beckmann

•  The demonisation of young people
•  The criminalisation of poverty
•  Gendered critiques of the application of criminal law and criminal /social policy
•  Identity, diversity and criminalisation
•  Immigration control

Resistance and radical alternatives

Contact: Gilles Chantraine Email: gilles.chantraine@univlille1.fr  

Assisting: Samantha Fletcher, Nicolas Carrier

•  Abolitionist approaches
•  Unsilencing the silenced
•  Collective action and collective resistance
•  The new politics of the Left

Policing and Security Working Group Stream

Contact: Georgios Papanicolaou

Assisting: Will Jackson, Waqas Tufail, Joanna Gilmore E-mail: g.papanicolaou@tees.ac.uk

•  Legacies of radical thinking about the police
•  Capitalism, pacification and the police
•  Democratizing the police: problems and prospects
•  Organisational change: beyond militarism and bureaucratism in policing
•  Alternatives to policing
•  Activist and community resistance movements: possibilities for autogestion in security
•  Challenging for-profit policing
•  experiences and prospects of security cooperatives

Submission guidelines

Further information on the 43rd annual conference may be found at www.europeangroup.org. Please submit all abstracts

by 30 April 2015 

to the email contact provided under the stream you wish to present at. For all general enquiries please contact Anna Markina at anna.markina@ut.ee .

For questions about the European Group, please contact the current co-ordinator, Emma Bell at europeangroupcoordinator@gmail.com .

Organising Committee

• Anna Markina, Email: Anna.Markina@ut.ee
• Alejandro Forero, Email:  aleforero@ub.edu
• Rita Faria, Email:  rfaria@direito.up.pt
• Alberto Testa, Email: alberto.testa@outlook.com
• Paddy Rawlinson, Email: P.Rawlinson@uws.edu.au
• Monish Bhatia, Email: m.bhatia@abertay.ac.uk
• Gilles Chantraine, Email:  gilles.chantraine@univ-lille1.fr
• Georgios Papanicolaou, E-mail:  g.papanicolaou@tees.ac.uk